Hellboy Science of Evil review

The first Hellboy movie was an enjoyable romp although I did nod off for a couple of minutes towards the end. I’m also looking forward to watching the sequel directed by Guillermo Del Toro. This game takes artistic direction from the Italian director and also features the voice of Ron Perlman as you fight the forces of evil over a few long levels.

It’s your standard third-person action adventure. You explore graveyards, forests and the likes, beating up lots of mythical creatures on the way. Lizard men, Werewolves and other ghostly beings all make an appearance as you hammer buttons to punch them or grapple them and throw them towards enemies or use them to get back some energy.

The problem is that’s all you do in the game. Most combat is also in an arena where you have to beat everyone up before the barriers are lifted. I wouldn’t mind doing this if the combat was full of exciting combos such as in Devil May Cry. Unfortunately combat is slow and repetitive and just not much fun. I found myself just mashing the buttons hoping no more enemies would pop up just so I could get to the end of each stage. Even end of stage bosses are boring and easy top beat.

The game could have been a little bit better with a coherent story and some good cut-scenes back at HQ but you don’t even get that – just a hotchpotch of levels spread across many years that don’t appear to have much relevance to each other. If you like you can also play the game as Liz Sherman and Abe Sapian in co-op mode split screen or over live but this doesn’t really offer anything to make the game much more fun to play.

It also looks like a last-gen game. I quite like the Tim Burton-eqsue look of it but everything just looks very flat and a bit rushed. Konami games are usually quality but this one isn’t. Hellboy should go back from where he came. It gets 3 out of 10.